The monkeylike form of the erudite physicist, dwarfed by the big chassis, gave the appearance of a small boy trying to hide an outsize treasure; but the nonchalant humor that normally poked constant fun at both his profession as a physicist and the traditions of his Chinese ancestors, was lacking.

Dr. Ishie was both breathless and worried.

"Mike," he gasped. "I was afraid to leave it, unshielded. It might pick up some residual activity. Radiation, that is. From those hydrogen hordes outside." He let the object rest for a moment, mopping his head while he talked. "Can you hide it in here? I'm not really anxious to have Budget Control know where some of this stuff went—even though I have honorable intentions of returning the components later—and the good captain down there on the bridge might not consider its shielding important, either, if he knew I'd sabotaged his beautiful evacuation plan to bring my pet along!" The tone of Ishie's voice indicated his uncertainty as to Mike's reception.

The idea of Dr. Y Chi Tung worrying about any components he might have "requisitioned" seemed almost irreverent to Mike. Budget Control would gladly have given that eminent physicist a good half of the entire space station, if he had expressed his needs through the proper channels—as a matter of fact, anything on board that wasn't actually essential to the lives of those on the satellite.

* * * * *

But Ishie seemed genuinely unaware of his true status, and the high regard in which he was held. Besides, Mike suspected in him a constitutional inability to deal through channels.

Recognizing the true sensitivity that underlay Ishie's constant humor and ridicule of himself, Mike kept himself from laughing aloud at the stealth of the man who could have commanded the assistance of the captain himself in shielding whatever he thought it necessary to shield.

Instead, he carefully kept his face solemn while he commented: "It ought to fit in that rack over there." He pointed to a group of half-filled racks. "We can slip a fake panel on it. Nobody will be able to tell it from any of the other control circuits."

Ishie heaved a deep sigh of relief and grinned his normal grin. "Confusion say," he declared, "that ninety-six pound weakling who struggle down shaft with six hundred pound object, even in free fall, should have stood in bed."

It took the two of them the better part of half an hour to get the unit into place; to disguise its presence; and to make proper power connections. Ishie had objected at first to connecting it up, and Mike explained his insistence by saying that "If it looks like something that works, nobody will look at it twice. But if it looks like something dead, one of my boys is apt to take it apart to see what it's supposed to be doing." He didn't mention his real reason—a heady desire to run a few tests on the instrument himself.

The job done, the two sat back on their heels, admiring their handiwork like bad boys.

"Coffee?" asked Mike.

"Snarl. Honorable ancestor Confusion doesn't even need to tell me what to do now. My toy is safe. I am going to bed. I have worked without stopping for two days and now the flare has stopped me.

"Confusion decide to relent. He tell me now: 'He who drive self like slave for forty-eight hours is nuts and should be sent to bed.' I hope," he added, "that the hammocks are soft; but I don't think I shall notice. I know just where to go for I checked in once to fool the Sacred Cow before I went to get my beautiful. Now I go back again."

And without so much as a thank-you, he staggered out, grasping for hand-holds to guide himself in a most unspacemanlike manner.

* * * * *

Mike craftily sat back, still on his heels beside the object, and watched until Ishie had disappeared, and then turned his full interest to the playtoy that fortune had placed in his shop.

Without hesitation he removed the false front they had so carefully put in place. He still had a long tour of duty ahead, and it was very unlikely that he would be interrupted, or, if interrupted, that anyone would question the object on which he worked. It would be assumed that this was just another piece of equipment normally under his care.

Carefully he looked over the circuits, checking in his mind the function of each. Then he went to his racks and began selecting test equipment designed to fit in the empty racks around it. Oscilloscope, signal generator, volt meters and such soon formed a bank around the original piece of equipment, in positions of maximum access.

Gingerly he began applying power to the individual circuits, checking carefully his understanding of each component.

The magnetic field effect, Ishie had explained; but this three-phase RF generator—that puzzled him for a while.

Then he remembered some theory. Brute strength alone would not cause the protons to tip. Much as a top, spinning off-center on its point, will swing slowly around that point instead of tipping over, the spinning protons in the magnetic field would precess, but would not tip and line up without the application of a rotating secondary magnetic field at radio frequencies which would make the feat of lining them up easy.

There, then, were two of the components that Ishie had built into his device. A strong magnetic field supplied by the magnaswedge coils—stolen magnaswedge coils if you please—and a rotating RF field supplied by the generator below the chassis.

But this third effect? The DC electric field? That one was new to him.

In his mind he pictured the tiny gyroscopes all brought into alignment by the interplay of magnetic forces; and around each proton the tiny, planetary electrons.

Yet it was very well to think of the proton nucleus of the hydrogen atom as a simple top, he reminded himself; but they were more complex than that. Each orbiting electron must also contribute something to the effect.

At that point, Mike remembered, the electron itself would be spinning, a lighter-weight gyroscope, much as Earth has a lighter weight than the Sun. The electron, too, had a magnetic field; more powerful than the proton's field because of its higher rate of spin, despite its lighter mass. The electron could also be lined up.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mike remembered having read of another effect. The electron's resonance. Electron para-magnetic resonance.

It, too, could be controlled by radio frequencies in a magnetic field—but the frequencies were different, far up in the microwave region; about three centimeters as Mike recalled—and he went back to his supply cabinet to get another piece of equipment, a spare klystron that actually belonged to the radar department but that was "stored" in his shop.

At these frequencies, the three centimeter band of the electromagnetic spectrum, energy does not flow on wires as it does in the lower frequency regions. Here plumbing is required. But Mike, amongst other things, was an expert RF plumber.

Even experts take time to set up klystrons, and it was three hours later before Mike was ready with the additional piece of haywire equipment which carefully piped RF energy into the plastic block.

This refinement by itself had been done before; but some of the others that Mike applied during his investigation probably hadn't—at least not to any such tortured piece of plastic as now existed between the pole faces of the device.

To have produced the complete alignment of both the protons and the electrons within a mass might have been attempted before. To have applied an electrostatic field in addition to this had perhaps been attempted before. To have done all three, at the same time to the same piece of plastic, and then to have added the additional tortures that Mike thought up as he went along, was perhaps a chance combination, repeatable once in a million tries, one of those experimental accidents that sometimes provide more insight into the nature of matter than all of the careful research devised by multi-million-dollar-powered teams of classical researchers.

When the contraption was in full operation, he simply sat on his heels and watched, studying out in his mind the circuits and their effects.

The interruption of the magnetic resonance by the electrostatic field—by the DC—with the RF plumbing—twisted by—each time the concept came towards the surface, it sank back as he tried to pull it into consciousness.

Churkling to itself, the device continued applying its alternate fields and warps and strains.

"It's a Confusor out of Confusion by Ishie, who is probably as great a creator of Confusion as you could ask," Mike told himself, forgetting his own part in the matter, watching intently, waiting for the concept to come clear in his mind.

Presently he went over to his console, to his pads of paper and pencils, and began sketching rapidly, drawing the interlocking and repulsing fields, the alignments, mathing out the stresses—in an attempt to visualize just what it was that the Confusor would now be doing....

* * * * *

In the Confusor itself, a tiny chunk of plastic, four by four inches square and one-half inch thick, resting in the middle of the machine between the carefully aligned pole-faces of the magnet, was subjected to the cumulatively devised stresses, a weird distortion of its own stresses and of the inertia that was its existence.

Each proton and electron within the plastic felt an urge to be where it wasn't—felt a pseudo-memory, imposed by the outside stresses, of having been traveling at a high velocity towards the north star, on which the machine chanced to be oriented; felt the new inertia of that velocity....

Each proton and electron fitted itself more snugly against the north pole face and pushed with the entire force of its newly-imposed inertial pattern.

Forty pounds to the square inch six hundred forty pounds over the surface of the block, the plastic did its best to assume the motion that the warped laws of its existence said that it already had.

It was only one times ten to the minus five of a gravity that the four by four by half inch piece of carefully machined plastic presented to the sixty-four million pound mass of Space Lab One.

But the force was presented almost exactly along the north-south axis of the hub of the ship, and in space a thrust is cumulative and momentum derives per second per second.

The Confusor churkled quietly as the piece of plastic exerted its tiny mass in a six hundred forty pound attempt to take off towards the north star. And, since the piece itself was rigidly mounted to its frame, and the frame to the ship, the giant bulk of five million cubic feet of water, thirty-two million pounds of mass; and the matching mass-bulk of the ship itself, responded to the full mosquito-sized strength of the six hundred forty pound thrust, and was moved—a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the first second; a fraction of a fraction in the second; a fraction....

* * * * *

On the bridge, the com officer had completed transmitting the captain's detailed report of the evacuation to the hub-shield area caused by the solar flare.

On another line, under Bessie's ministrations, the computer was feeding the data obtained by the incomplete equipment in the observatory in its automatic operation.

The captain himself was finishing a plastic-bottle of coffee, while he wrote up his log.

It was exactly nine minutes since the Confusor had come into full operation.

The fractions of fractions of centimeters had added on the square of the number of seconds; and the sixty-four million pounds of mass of Space Lab One has moved over thirteen meters.

Trailing the wheel ten miles off, was the atomic pile, directly attached to its anchor tube.

Tightening, each with a whanging snap too tiny to be remarked within the mass of the ship, were the cables that attached the various items of the dump to their anchor finger.

But still free on the loose one hundred meter cable that attached it to its anchor, and which had had fifteen meters of slack when the ship first began its infinitesimal movement, was Project Hot Rod.

Nine minutes and twenty-three seconds. The velocity of the wheel with its increasing mass of trailing items, was five point four six centimeters per second. The nearly four million pound mass of Hot Rod was slowly being left behind.

The cable tautened the final fraction of a centimeter. Its tug was not fast, but was unfortunately applied very close to the center of gravity of the entire device, since most of Hot Rod's weight was concentrated in and around the control room.

Five point four six centimeters per second. Four million pounds of mass.

If the shock had been direct, it would have equaled two point eight million ergs of energy, created by the fractional movement of the mighty mass of the ship against Hot Rod.

But the shock was transmitted through the short end of a long lever. The motion at the beam director mirror, a full diameter out from the eight thousand foot diameter balloon that was Hot Rod, was multiplied nearly sixteen thousand times. Hot Rod rolled on its center of gravity, and its beam-director mirror swung in a huge arc. Sixteen thousand centimeters per centimeter of original motion. Eight hundred and seventy-three meters in the first second, before the tracking servos took over and began to fight back.

* * * * *

Hot Rod fought at the end of its tether like a mighty jellyfish hooked on the end of a line.

Gradually the swings decreased. Four hundred meters; two hundred meters; one hundred meters; fifty meters; twenty-five meters—and it had come back to a nearly stable focus on the sun.

But the beam director had also been displaced, and vibrated. Internally, the communications beam to Thule Base had been interrupted; and the fail-safe had not failed-safely.

The mighty beam had lashed out. The vibrations of the directing mirror began placing gigantic spots and sweeps of unresistible energy across the ice cap of Greenland, in an ever-diminishing Lissajous pattern.

By the time the servos refocused the communications beam on Thule, there was no Thule; only a burnt-out crater where it had been.

Slowly, but surely, the giant balloon settled itself to the task of burning a hole through the Greenland ice cap at a spot eighty miles north of that now-burnt-out Thule Base that had originally been planned as a test of its accuracy; and to the simple task of holding that focus in spite of the now steady, though infinitesimal acceleration under which it joined the procession headed by Lab One.

Now that the waves of action and reaction from the shock energy of its sudden start had subsided, Hot Rod's accuracy was proving great indeed; and its beam focus was proving as small as had been predicted.

But the instruments that would have measured those facts no longer existed.

In the engineering control center of Space Lab One, the Confusor churkled quietly and continued to pit its mosquito might against its now nearly seventy-eight million pound antagonist, as the protons and electrons of the plastic that was center to its forces did their inertial best to occupy that position in space towards the north star in which the warped fields around them forced them to belong—the mosquito strained its six hundred forty pound thrust against its giant in the per second per second acceleration that was effective only in the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the first second, but that compounded its fractions per second.

* * * * *

On the quiet bridge, the captain looked up as the Com Officer said, "Thule Base, sir," and switched on his mike.

"Hot Rod has been sabotaged," a frantic voice on the other end of the beam shouted in his ear without formalities. "She's running wild. Kill her! Repeat, Hot Rod is wild! Kill Hot Rod! Kill—" the mike went dead as Captain Andersen switched to the morgue intercom.

"Hot Rod crew," he said briefly. "Report to the bridge on the double. Repeat. Hot Rod crew. The bridge. On the double."

As he switched off the intercom, the communications officer spoke urgently. "Captain. I've lost contact with Thule base."

"Keep trying to raise them," Captain Andersen said. He turned to Bessie. "Give me a display of the Hellmaker," he said; then, almost to himself, "There's still a flare in progress out there. We've got to kill it without sending men into that—"

He cut himself off in midsentence, as the computer displayed both Hot Rod, swaying gently as she fought out the battle of the focus through its final moments, and a telescopic view of Greenland, a tiny, glowing coal of red showing at the center of her focus.

Through the door nearly catapulted the first of the Project Hot Rodders, followed almost on his heels by twelve more.

"Where is Major Elbertson?"

"In sick bay, sir. He got a big radiation dose—"

The captain flipped the intercom key.

"Calling Major Elbertson in sick bay. Report to the bridge on the double, no matter what your condition. This is the captain speaking."

The intercom came alive at far end.

"This is Dr. Green, Captain Andersen. Major Elbertson is unconscious. He cannot report for duty. He was extremely ill from exposure to radiation and we have administered sulph-hydral, antispasmodic, and sedative."

Nails Andersen turned to the project crew.

"Which of you are Security officers?"

Three men stepped forward.

"Are all the project members here?"

"No, sir," said one. "Eight of our men are in sick bay."

"Very well," said the captain. "Now hear this, all of you. There is a saboteur—maybe more than one, we do not know—among you. There is no time to find out which of you it is. However, he has managed to leave Project Hot Rod operational while unattended. You are to turn it off, and to prevent the saboteur from stopping you. Do you understand?"

A voice in back—a rather high voice—spoke up. "Of course it's operational," it said. "We left it operational."

"You ... WHAT?"

"We left it operational. It's under Earth control. The control center at Thule is in charge, sir."

"Who are you?" the captain asked.

"Hot Rod communications officer, sir. I turned it over last thing before we shut down. Under the instructions of Dr. Koblensky. That's the shutdown procedure."

"Where's Dr. Koblensky?"

"Out. Out like a light," said another voice. "He got a good dose. Of radiation. The medics put him out."

"Who's senior officer here?"

"I'm Dr. Johnston." It was a man in front. Rather small, pedantic-looking. "I'm Dr. Koblensky's ... well, assistant." The word came hard as though the fact of an assistantship were at the least distasteful.

"Who's senior in Security?"

"I, sir. Chauvenseer."

"Very well. Dr. Johnston and Chauvens ... sor? ... are in charge. Now shut down that ruby hellmaker as fast as it can be done."

"But, captain," Dr. Johnston spoke, "we can't turn it off. We haven't the authority. We haven't the Security key. And the radiation won't let up for hours."

"I have just given you the authority. As for the radiation, that's a hazard you'll have to take. What's this about a Security key?" The captain's voice was not gentle.

"Major Elbertson has the key. He has the only key. Without it, the station cannot be removed from Earth control. Earth is in control. They can turn it off, captain." Dr. Johnston's voice took on as firm a tone of authority as that of the captain.

"Chau ... Chau ... You!" barked the captain. "Get that key!" He waited until the Security officer had disappeared through the door, then turned to the scientist.

* * * * *

"Dr. Johnston, Earth is not in control. I do not know why, and there is no way of finding out. Hot Rod is wild, and that," he pointed at the enlarging red spot that centered the computer display, "is what your ruby is doing to Earth.

"You will turn off the project, at gunpoint if necessary," he continued in a grim voice. "If you turn it off volitionally, you will be treated for radiation. If you refuse, you will not live to be treated for anything. Do you understand? How many men do you need to help you ... and I do mean you ... with the job?" he asked.



Dr. Johnston hesitated only fractionally, and Nails Andersen mentally put him down on the plus side of the personnel for the shortness of his com lag. Then he said, "The job will require only two men for the fastest accomplishment. You realize, captain that you are probably signing our death warrants—the two of us. But," he added, glancing only casually at the display on the console, "I can understand the need to sign that warrant, and I shall not quibble."

The intercom spoke. "This is Dr. Green, captain. There is no key on the person of Major Elbertson. We have searched thoroughly, sir. I understand the need is of an emergency nature. The key is not on his person. We have taken every possible measure to arouse him, as well, and have been unsuccessful."

Andersen flipped his switch. "Let me speak to the Hot Rod Security officer," he said briefly.

"Chauvenseer speaking, sir," the man's voice came on.

"Do you know what the key looks like?"

"Yes, sir. It looks somewhat like a common Yale key, sir. But I've never seen another just like it."

"There is only the one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where would he keep it, if not on his person?"

"I don't know, sir. We came straight to the morgue—the shield area, from the air lock. I don't believe he stopped off anywhere he could have put it."

The captain turned to the second Security officer. "Search Elbertson's spacesuit," he said. Then to the intercom, "Search his hammock. Search every spot he went near. That key must be found in minutes. Commandeer as many men as can help in the search without getting in the way."

He paused a moment, then flipped another intercom key.

"Mr. Blackhawk," he said.

The intercom warmed at the far end. "Yes sir?" Mike's voice was relaxed.

"Is there any way to turn off Hot Rod without the Security key?"

"Why sure, captain." Mike's voice held a grin. "I could pull the power switch."

"Pull it. Fast. Hot Rod's out of control."

Mike's hand flashed to a master switch controlling the power that fed Hot Rod, and blessing as he did it the fallacy of engineering that had required external power to power the mighty energy collector.

In the big balloon now happily following the wheel at the end of its tether, the still-undamaged power-off fail-safe went into operation. The mirror surface behind each ruby rod rotated into its shielding position, dispersing the energy that the huge mirror directed towards the rods, back into space.

Hot Rod was secure.

* * * * *

Mike received only one further communication from the captain.

"Mr. Blackhawk," he was asked over the intercom, "is there any way that you secure the Hot Rod power switch so that it cannot be turned on without my personal authorization?"

"Sure, captain, I can—"

The captain interrupted. "Mr. Blackhawk, I should prefer that you not tell me or anyone else aboard the method you will use; and that you make your method as difficult as possible to discover. This I shall leave," he added dryly, "to your rather ... fertile ... imagination.

"There is reason to believe that Project Hot Rod was turned on by a saboteur. Your method must be proof against him, and if he exists, he will not be stupid." The captain switched off.

Mike turned to the control panel, and after a few minutes thought busied himself for some time.

Then he headed for the bridge where Dr. Johnston, Chauvenseer, and the captain had dismissed the others and were utilizing every check that Dr. Johnston could dream up to assure themselves that Hot Rod was actually turned off and would remain secure at least for the duration of the flare; and trying as well to find out just what form the sabotage had taken.

Without interrupting the others, Mike seated himself at the subsidiary post at the computer's console on Bessie's right, and got her to brief him while he examined the close-up display of Hot Rod.

After a few minutes he reached over and increased the magnification to its maximum, showing only a small portion of the balloon, then moved the focus to display the control room entrance as well as part of the anchor tube and the cable between the two.

"I think I've found your saboteur, sir," he said.

The captain was at his side almost instantly. "Where is he?" he asked briefly.

"Not he, sir. It. And I'm not sure just where—but look. Hot Rod's cable is taut. There's thrust on the balloon. That probably means a puncture and escaping nitrogen.

"I think," he said, "that the saboteur may have been a meteor that punctured the balloon, and the nitrogen escaping through the hole it made is now producing enough thrust to keep that cable taut. Though," he added thoughtfully, "I don't see why the servos couldn't maintain the beam to Thule—though obviously, they couldn't."

"How dangerous is such a puncture?" asked the captain. "How seriously would Hot Rod be damaged? How soon must it be repaired?"

"The puncture itself shouldn't be too dangerous. Even if all the nitrogen's gone, the balloon's in a vacuum and won't collapse—and that's about the only serious effect a puncture would have. Just a moment. We'll estimate its size by the thrust it's giving the ship," he added, and turned to Bessie.

"Ask the Cow whether we're getting thrust on the ship; and if so, how much. Wait a minute," he added, "if you ask for thrust on the ship, she'll say there isn't any because Hot Rod would be pulling us, not pushing. And if you ask her for the thrust on Hot Rod, she hasn't got any sensors out there.

"Hm-m-m. Ask her if we have added any off-orbit velocity; and if so how much."

* * * * *

The computer displayed the answer almost as soon as she received the question.

"Well," said Mike, "that's not too large a hole. Ask her how ... let's see ... how many pounds of thrust that velocity represents. That way we don't confuse her with whether it's push or pull."

The Cow displayed the answer, six hundred forty pounds of thrust.

"O.K.," said Mike. "Thanks." Then to the captain and the scientist and Security officer who were waiting beside him: "The puncture is obviously small enough to serve as a jet, rather than to have let the nitrogen out in one whoosh, since that would have given you far more than six hundred forty pounds of thrust. Therefore, it will probably be quite simple to patch the hole.

"Nitrogen is obviously escaping, but it wouldn't be worth a man's life to send him out into that flare-storm to patch it. We may even have enough nitrogen aboard to replace what we lose.

"The best I can figure," he said, "is that the meteor must have hit the orientation servos and thrown them off for a bit. We'll have to wait till after the flare to make more than an educated guess, though.

"We shouldn't be too far off-orbit by the time the flare's over, either, even with that jet constant. It'll take quite a bit of work, but we should be able to get her back into position with not too many hours of lost worktime.

"Except for Thule, I'd say we got off fairly light.

"Yes," he added grimly, "it looks like that's what your saboteur was. Rather an effective saboteur, but you'll have a hard time putting him up against a firing wall."

Having satisfied himself as to existing conditions, Mike excused himself shortly and went back to the engineering quarters, but his mind was no longer on Ishie's strange device. He glanced rapidly at the instruments regulating the power flow to the wheel, then stretched out comfortably on the acceleration couch and in minutes was asleep.

The captain, Dr. Johnston and Chauvenseer remained on the bridge another hour, convincing themselves that Mike's analysis was correct, and dictating a report to Earth, before the captain called in an aide to take over the bridge, and the three retired.

In the morgue, Dr. Y Chi Tung, who still slept peacefully as he had since the moment he reached his hammock, muttered quietly in his sleep, "Confusion—"

* * * * *

Mike snapped awake and glanced guiltily at the clock. Six hours had passed.

A situation report from the Cow was the first thing on his agenda any time that he had been out of contact for any length of time, flare or not.

It was not his job to be in constant contact with the complete situation of the ship and its vast complexities; he was not the captain. Nor was it in the manuals that he should have access to the computer's huge memory banks and abilities other than through "channels"—i.e., Bessie. But the book definition of the information he needed for his job, and his own criteria, were somewhat different, and he had built on Earth and installed shortly after he came aboard, a subcontrol link which put him in direct contact with the placid-Cow.

His original intention in rigging the link had been to use the calculator for that occasional math problem which might be more quickly resolved with her help; but then the criteria of needed information, curiosity, or both, had got the better of him, and the secret panel hidden in the legitimate control panels of an engineer's console was actually quite a complete link, covering all of the Cow's multiple functions without interfering in any was with Bessie's control links, or revealing its existence. This linkage gave Mike the only direct access to the computer's store of information and abilities other than that of the operator at the control console.

And Mike's secret pride was the vocoder circuit with which he had terminated his link, originated because a teletype system similar to that used at the control console would have been too obvious; and his nimble fingers got all tangled up on a keyboard anyhow.

Bessie might speak to the Cow through the teletype link and switches of her control console, but only Mike had the distinction of being able to speak directly to the big computer, and get the complacent, somewhat mooing answers; and only Mike knew of the existence of the vocoder aboard.

It had taken some care to get used to the literal-minded conversation that resulted; but eventually Mike felt he had worked out a satisfactory communications ability with the overly obvious "cow."

What he wanted now was a situation report. If he simply asked for that, however, he'd have received such miles of data that he'd have been listening for hours. So instead he broke his question down into the facets that he needed.

In a few minutes he had elicited the information that the solar flare was now predicted to be terminated and the major part of the flare protons past their solar orbital position within another ten hours; that Earth co-ordinates had shifted, indicating their own orbital shift to be a trifle over thirty-seven kilometers north in the past eight hours.

North? he thought. Hot Rod's pull on a taut cable would be to the south.

No. Lab One could be re-oriented to trail the thrusting balloon. But the lab's servos should have prevented that re-orientation unless the thrust were really heavy.

"What is our velocity?" he asked. Temporarily he was baffled by the placid Cow's literal translation of his request as one for any actual velocity, since she had replied with a figure very close to their original orbital speed. "What is our velocity at right angles to original course?" he inquired.

And the Cow's reply came: "Two-o-o hundred and fifty-seven point seven six ce-entimeters per se-econd."

That should be about right for six hundred forty pounds of thrust for, say, six and a half hours; and the distance of the orbit shift was about right.

But the direction?

"Is Hot Rod pulling us north?" he asked.

"No-o-o," came the placid reply.

"If it's pulling us south, then why—" He stopped himself. Any "why" required inductive reasoning, and of that the Cow was not capable. Instead of asking why they were moving north with a south thrust, Mike broke his question into parts. He'd have to answer the "why" himself, he knew.

"Is Hot Rod pulling us south?" he asked.

"No-o-oo," came the answer.

This time he was more careful. "In which direction is the thrust on Hot Rod oriented?" he asked.

"No-oorth."

"Then Hot Rod is—" Quickly he stopped and rephrased the statement which would have had a question in its tone but not its semantics, into a question that would read semantically. "Is Hot Rod pulling us north?"

"No-o-oo," came the reply.

Carefully. "Is Hot Rod pulling us?"

"No-o-oo."

Mike was stumped. Then he figured a literalness in his phrasing.

"Is Hot Rod pushing or in any other way giving motion to Space Lab One?" he asked.

"No-o-oo," came the answer.

Now Mike was stumped.

"Is Space Lab One under acceleration?" he asked.

"Ye-es," said the Cow.

"Then where in hell is that acceleration coming from?" Mike was exasperated.

"We a-are uunder no-o-o acceleration fro-om he-ell," the literal mind told him.

* * * * *

Mike laughed ruefully. No acceleration from hell—well, that was debatable. But no thrust from the hellmaker was not a debatable point. The Cow wasn't likely to be wrong, though her appalling literalness was such that an improperly phrased question might make her seem to be.

Computers, he thought, would eventually be the salvation of the human race, whetting their inventors' brains to higher and higher efforts towards the understanding of communications.

Very carefully now he rephrased his question. "From what, and from what point is the acceleration of Space Lab One originating?"

"From the co-ontinu-ous thrust o-originating at a po-oint thirteen fe-et from the a-axial center of the whe-el, in hu-ub section five no-orth, one hundred twelve degrees fro-om reference ze-ero of the engine-eering lo-ongitude references sta-ation assigned in the con-struction ma-anual dealing with relative po-ositions o-of ma-asses lo-ocated o-on Spa-ace La-ab O-one."

Mike glanced up at the tube overhead, which represented the axial passageway down the hub of the wheel. Thirteen feet from the imaginary center of that tube, and in his own engineering compartment.

Then his gaze traveled on around the oddly built, circular room with its thirty-two-foot diameter. The reference to hub section five north meant this compartment. The degrees reference referred to the balancing co-ordinates by which the Cow kept the big wheel statically balanced during rotation. There was a bright stripe of red paint across the floor which indicated zero degrees; and degrees were counted counterclockwise from the north pole of the wheel.

His eyes strayed across the various panels and racks and came to rest in the one hundred twelve degree area. A number of vacant racks, some holding the testing equipment he had moved there not too many hours before—and churkling quietly in its rack near the floor, Ishie's Confusor of Confusion.

Mike contemplated the device with awed respect, then phrased another question for the Cow.

"Exactly how much thrust is being exerted on that point?" he asked.

The computer reeled off a string of numbers so fast that he missed them, and was still going into the far decimal places when Mike said:

"Whoa! Approximate number of pounds, please."

"A-approximately six hundred forty. You-u didn't specify the limits o-of a-accuracy tha-at you-u wanted." The burred tone was still complacent.

"Just what acceleration has that given us?" asked Mike, still looking at the Confusor. "Approximately," he added quickly.

"Present a-acceleration is a-approximately eight point nine five ti-imes te-en to the mi-inus third ce-entimeters per se-econd per se-econd. I ca-an ca-arry that to-o-o several mo-ore de-ecimal pla-aces if you-u wi-ish."

"No, thanks, I think you've told me enough."

Mike stood up.

This, he thought, needs Ishie. And coffee, he told himself as a second thought.

And then as a third thought, he turned back to his secret vocoder panel, and said: "The information you have just given me is to be regarded as top secret and not to be discussed except over this channel and by my direct order. Absolutely nothing that would give any one a clue to the fact that there is a method of acceleration aboard. Understood?"

"Ye-es, Mah-ike."

"O.K."

Mike switched off the vocoder, flipped his intercom to the temporary galley in the morgue, and ordered two breakfasts readied. Then he set off for the morgue.



Mike Blackhawk located Dr. Y. Chi Tung's hammock, and nudged the scientist unceremoniously. The small physicist awoke and attempted to sit up in one gesture; bumped his head on the hammock above, and laid back down just as suddenly.

"Come on down to engineering will you Ishie?" The request was spoken softly.

"Hokey, dokey," said Ishie and crawled out of the narrow aperture with the agility of a monkey.

Gesturing to the other to follow him, Mike led the way to the galley first, where the two picked up the readied breakfast and took them to Mike's quarters.

The "cups" of coffee were squeeze bottles; the trays were soft plastic packages, similar to the boil-in-the-bag containers of frozen food that had been common on Earth for some time.

Mike hesitated at the entrance to his engineering quarters, considering whether to shut the bulkhead, but discarded the idea as being more of an attention-getter than a seal for secrecy. He gestured Ishie to the bunk, and parked himself at his console.

"We're in trouble," he said. "You and I together are responsible for the first space attack on Earth."

He stopped and waited, owl-eyed, but the small physicist simply tackled his breakfast with no further comment than a raised eyebrow.

"We," said Mike solemnly, "wiped out Thule Base last night."

"As Confusion would say, there's no Thule like a dead Thule. What are you getting at Mike? You sound serious."

"You mean you slept through ... you didn't know we ... you didn't hear the ... yes, I guess you slept! Well...."

Rapidly Mike sketched the events of the past nine hours, bringing his story completely up to date, including the information he'd gleaned from the Cow, but making no reference to his access to the computer's knowledge. Instead, he attributed the conclusions to himself.

The physicist sat so still when he had finished that Mike became seriously concerned. "Thule...." he began, but Ishie started to speak.

"Mike, it did? It couldn't ... but ... of course, it must have ... the fields ... six hundred forty pounds of thrust! Only six hundred forty, yet ... yes, it could, if the thrust were exactly aligned ... thrust ... Mike, thrust! Mike, thrust! Real thrust! Mike do you know what this means?" His eyes were alight. His voice was reverent. He sprang from the bunk and knelt before the rack that held the churkling Confusor.

"My pretty," he said. "My delicate pretty. What you have done! Mike, we've got a space drive!"

"Ishie. Don't you realize? We wiped out Thule!"

"Thule, schmule—Mike, we've got a space drive!"

Mike grinned to himself. He needn't have worried. Not about Ishie, any how.

But now Ishie was gesturing him over.

"Mike," he said, "you must show me in detail. In exact detail. What did you do? What was your procedure?"

Mike came over and casually reached towards the churkling device, saying "Why, I—" but Ishie reacted with catlike swiftness, blocking the man before he could even touch the rack.

"No, don't touch it! Just tell me what you did!"

Carefully now, Mike began outlining in detail his inspection of the device and each step he had taken as he added to its complexities.

When he had finished, the two sat back on their heels thinking. Finally, Mike spoke.

"Ishie, will you please tell me just how does this thing ... this Confusor ... get that thrust? Just exactly what is involved here?"

Ishie took his time answering, and when he did his words come slowly. "Ah, yes. Confusor it is. I was attempting to confound Heisenberg's statement; but instead I think between us we have confused the issue.

"Heisenberg said that there was no certainty in our measurement of the exact orbit of an electron. That the instrument used to measure the position of the electron must inevitably move the electron; and the greater the attempt at precise measurements, the greater the error produced by the measurements.

"It was my hope," he went on, "to provide greater accuracy of measurement, by use of statistics over the vast number of electrons in orbit around the hydrogen atoms within the test mass. But this, apparently, will not be.

"Now to see what it is we have done.

"First, let us make a re-expression of the laws of math-physics. You understand that I am feeling my way here, for what we have done and what I thought I was doing are quite different, and I am looking with hindsight now at math-physics from the point of reality of this thrust.

"As I understand it, there's a mutual exclusiveness of particles, generally expressed by the statement that two particles may not occupy the same space at the same time.

"But as I would put it, this means each particle owns its own place. Now, inertia says that each particle not only owns its own place, but owns its own temporal memory of where it's going to be unless something interferes with it.

"Now let me not confuse you with semantics. When I say 'memory' and 'knowing' I am not implying a sentient condition. I am speaking of the type of memory and knowing that is a strain in the structure of the proton or atom. This is ... well, anyhow, not sentient. You will have to translate for yourself.

"So to continue, inertia, the way I would put it, says that each particle not only owns its own place, but owns its own temporal memory of where it is going unless it is interfered with.

"In other words, the particle arriving here, now, got here by remembering in this other sense that it was going from there to there to there with some inherent sort of memory. This memory can't be classified as being in relation to anything but the particle itself. No matter how you move the things around it, as long as the things around it don't exert an influence on the particle, the particle's memory of where it's been and where it's going form a continuous straight line through space and must, therefore, have spatial co-ordinates against which to form a 'memory' pattern of former and future action.

"Now as I understand gravity, it's simply the statement that all particles in space are covetous, in this same non-sentient sense, of the position in space of all their neighboring particles. In other words, it's a contravention or the attempted contravention of the statement that two particles may not be in the same place at the same time. It seems that all particles have an urge to try to be in each other's space. And this desire is modified by the distance that separates them.

"This adds up to three rules:

"1. No two particles may occupy the same space at the same time.

"2. Even though they can't, they try.

"3. They all know where they're going, and where they've been without relation to anything but the spatial co-ordinates around them.

"That third statement seems to me to knock something of a hole in Einstein's relativity theory. Unless you wish to grant all these particles some method of determining their relationship to particles that are not near them.

"Communication between particles by any means is apparently limited by the speed of light, which is a relationship between space and time, but apparently, from what we know of inertia, if the universe contained only a single particle, and that particle was in motion, it would continue to move regardless of the fact that its motion could not be checked upon in relation to other particles.

"This indicates to me that the particle has an existence in space because it is created out of space, and that space must, therefore, have some very real properties of its own regardless of what is or is not in it. The very fact that there is a limiting speed to light and particle motion introduces the concept that space has physical properties.

"In order to have an electromagnetic wave, one must have a medium in which an electric field or a magnetic field may exist. In order to have matter, which I believe to be a form of electromagnetic field in stasis, one must have special properties which make the existence of matter possible. In order to have inertia, one must also have spatial properties which make the existence of inertia possible.

"People are fond of pointing out that there's nothing to get hold of in free space in order to climb the ladder of gravity, or in order to move between the planets, and that the only possibility of motion of a vehicle in space is to throw something away, or, in other words, lose mass in order to gain speed by reaction. Which is simply a statement that as far as we can tell a force can only be exerted relative to two points—or between two points or masses.

"But this does not account for the continuance of motion once started.

"Inertia says a body will move once started, but it doesn't say why or how. How does that particle once started gain the knowledge to continue without some direct control over its spatial framework? That it will continue, we know. That in the presence of a gravitic field or a magnetic field or other attractive force at right angles to its motion, we can create an acceleration which will maintain it in an exactly circular path called an orbit. But how does it remember, as soon as that field ceases to exist, where it was going before it was last influenced? That it will continue in a straight line indefinitely, without such an influence, we know. That it can be influenced over a distance by various field effects, we also know. But what is the mechanism of influence whereby it influences itself to continue in a straight line? And what handle did we get hold of to convert that influence of self to our own advantage in moving this ship?"

* * * * *

Mike stared at Ishie with vast respect.

"I thought you physics boys did it all with math," he said softly, "and here you've outlined the facts of space that an Indian can feel in his bones—and you've done it in good, solid English that makes some sense.

"In other words," Mike was almost talking to himself as he tried to reword Ishie's theorizing into his own type of thinking, "the particle in motion creates a strain in the fabric—the field—of space; and that fabric must attempt to relieve itself of the strain. A particle in motion makes it possible for the fabric of space to smooth itself out behind the particle; and the fabric attempts to smooth itself on through the area occupied by the particle while it is moving, and so the fabric of space smoothing itself is a constant thrust behind the particle's motion, continuing that motion and making the particle scat to where he wasn't going.

"When that same particle is stopped," Mike was visualizing the process to himself, "the force of the attempt to smooth itself out by the fabric of space exists equally around the particle on all sides; so that the particle will be held stopped by the attempt of the fabric to smooth itself until set into motion again by a force greater than that of inertia—for inertia, then, is the attempt of the fabric of space to smooth itself.

"Quite possibly," Mike was speaking very slowly now as he mocked up and watched the forces of this inertia, "matter itself is created out of the fabric of space, and in its creation, in the stasis condition that keeps it existing as a particle rather than dissolving back into the original fabric, it creates the strain in the fabric—in space—that will then seek to smooth itself so long as the particle shall exist.

"Thus this, then, is inertia—the attempt of the fabric of space to smooth itself; to get rid of the strain of the particle that has been created from itself."

Ishie shook his head. "Not quite," he said, "but you're getting close."

Mike shook himself like a dog coming out of water.

"Oh, well," he said. "Anyway, we've got a space drive—flea sized. Now the question before the board becomes, just what are we going to do with it? Turn it over to the captain?"

"Confusion say," said Ishie, "he who has very little is often most generous. But he who has huge fortune is very cautious about dispersing it. Let's first be sure what we've got," he grinned slyly at Mike, "before we become overgenerous with information."

Mike heaved a huge sigh of relief. He had been afraid he would have to argue Ishie into this point of view.

"Speaking of math, Mike, you're no slouch at it yourself, if you figured out all those orbit co-ordinates in your head, and arrived at an exact figure on the amount of thrust. It would be very nice for our future investigations if we had some method of putting the Cow to work on this." The little physicist sat back, grinned knowingly, and continued: "Where's your secret panel, Mike? We've got to keep this information from going to anybody else."



"Oh, I already—" Mike stopped. "I mean," he floundered, "uh ... how did you know?" A foolish grin spread over his face. "It's right behind you," he said. "And I've got it by voice," he said. "Just push the switch in the corner and talk to it."

* * * * *

Ishie turned, glanced at the panel, and went over to the switch, pushing it. "I wondered how you were concealing the teletype," he said. "You mean you really talk to it?"

The Sacred Cow's voice came back. "Reference not understoo-od. Ple-ease explai-ain."

"Oy!" said Ishie. "It even sounds like a cow!"

"Ye-es, si-ir," said the Cow. "A cow is an he-erbivorous ma-ammal, usua-ally do-omesticated, and fou-ound in mo-ost of the cou-ountries of Ea-arth. Wha-at specific da-ata did you-u wi-ish? The mi-ilk su-upply—"

"Hold it," Mike said, forestalling a long dissertation on the dairy industry.

Catching on quickly to the literal-mindedness of the placid computer, Ishie fired a direct question.

"What is our current position in relation to the equatorial orbit that we should be following?" he asked.

There was a sput from the speaker, very much as though someone had been caught off guard and almost said something, and then the placid reply came back.

"That information is top secret. Please identify yourself as Mike and I will answer you."

Ishie groaned, depressed the cutoff switch and turned to Mike.

"You fixed it," he said. "If a simple question like that gets an answer like that, how long do you think it will take the captain to find out something's wrong with the Cow?"

Mike lunged for the switch, but Ishie held him back.

"Hold it, Boy. You've made enough electronic mistakes for one day. This takes some thinking over."

"We better think fast," said Mike. "The captain'll ask that question any second now, or a question like it."

"All right," said Ishie. "First we've got to withdraw your original order—and you'd better not trust your own memory as to what it was. You ask the Cow to tell you what order you gave her making certain information top secret. Then when she tells you exactly what you said, you tell her to cancel that order."

Mike did as he was told.

"Why," said Ishie, "did you give such an order in the first place? Never mind answering that question," he added, "but it's lucky she hasn't been refusing to give people the time of day, and referring them to you. As a matter of fact"—glancing up at the clock on the wall—"it looks like she has. That clock hasn't moved since I got here."

Even as he spoke, the clock whirred, jumped forty-five minutes, and settled down to its steady, second-by-second spin.

"Ishie," said Mike, "we figured out a space drive, and that was great. But if we can figure out how to communicate an idea to a computer, we're real geniuses."

Ishie turned on the vocoder. "Please supply us," he told the Cow, "with a complete recording of your latest conversation with Mike."

And as the computer started back over the dialogue that has just occurred between herself and Mike, Ishie interrupted. "Not that," he said, "I mean the last previous conversation."

Then he sat back as the Cow unreeled a fifteen minute monologue which repeated both sides of the conversation including the order to make everything top secret.

Having listened through this, Ishie said: "At the point where Mike asks you about acceleration, you will now erase the rest of the conversation and substitute this comment from yourself: 'The lab is being accelerated by an external magneto-ionic effect.' This will be your only explanation of acceleration applied to the ship. Now please repeat your conversation with Mike."

Then he sat back to listen through the recording again.

This time when it came to the part about acceleration, without hesitation, the Cow referred blithely to the external magneto-ionic effect that was causing acceleration.

When Ishie asked the computer: "How could this effect be canceled?" and listened to a long syllogistic outline which, if condensed to a single, understandable sentence meant simply "by reversing the field in respect to the lab with a magnet on board the lab."

Ishie heaved a great sigh of relief, and said, "Now, Mike, we can go to work. For of course," he added, "we must have authority to install our magnetic coils, and what better authority is there than the Cow?

"Confusion say it is better to have the voice of authority speak with your words than to be the voice of authority.

"Now," he said, "let us see what we have really got here."

* * * * *

As they worked, time progressed. The empty racks around the Confusor slowly filled with more test instruments both borrowed and devised; and the formerly unoccupied corner of the section of panels took on more and more the look of a complete installation, in the center of which the Confusor still churkled quietly, pitting its strength against the mighty monster to which it was so firmly tied.

Two hours were spent in testing circuits, each one exhaustively. Then Ishie turned to Mike.

"We need still yet another test that we have not provided. A strain gauge to find out how much thrust a mosquito puts out. There's one in the physics lab. I'll run get it."

"You will not," said Mike. "Genius you may be, but proton-proof you're not. We can rig that right here."

Walking over to the spare parts locker, Mike brought back a complete readout display panel, a spare from one of the Cow's bridge consoles; and quickly connected it in to the data link on which the vocoder operated. Then, carefully instructing the computer as to the required display, he settled back.

"That'll do it," he said. "The Cow can tell us all we need to know right on that panel—about acceleration, lack of it, or change of it that we may cause by changing the parameters of our experiment. Those racks were checked out to stand up under eighty gees," he added. "Typical overspecification. They never said what would happen to the personnel under those conditions."

Ishie turned the Confusor off and then back on, and watched the display gauge rise to the six hundred forty mark, and then show the fraction above it .12128. Then carefully, ever so infinitesimally, he adjusted a knob on the device. The readout sank back towards zero, coming to rest reading 441.3971.

"We'll have to put a vernier control on this phase circuit," Ishie said to himself. "It jumped thirty per-cent, and I scarcely breathed on it."

After a few more checks on the operation of the phase control, he turned to the power control for the magnetic field. Carefully, Ishie lowered the field strength, eye on the readout panel. As the field strength lowered, the reading increased.

The indication was that by lowering the field strength only ten per cent, he had increased the thrust to sixteen hundred pounds—which, he felt, was close to the tolerance of the machine structure.

Carefully he increased the field strength again. Faithfully the reading followed it down the scale.

Then he had another thought. Running the field strength down and the pressure up, and again arriving at sixteen hundred pounds, he turned off the Confusor, waited a few moments, and turned it back on.

The reading remained zero.

Apparently, then a decrease in field strength would cause an increase in thrust; but the original field strength was necessary in order to initiate the thrust field.

Carefully he nudged the field strength back up, and suddenly there were seven hundred ten pounds indicated thrust.

Thrust could apparently be initiated by a field strength a few per cent lower, but not much lower, than the original operating point.

* * * * *

Captain Naylor Andersen arrived on the bridge with an accusing air, but feeling refreshed. He had slept longer than he intended—and though he had asked Bessie to call him when she came back on duty two hours earlier, he had not been called.

"You needed the sleep, captain," she told him unrepentant. "I checked with the Cow. The flare's predicted to continue for another eight hours. We're simply in standby."

However, various observatories on Earth had not been asleep. Within fifteen minutes of the time he reached the bridge, a message from U.N. Headquarters chattered in over the teletype.

"Tracking stations report your orbital discontinuity too great to have been achieved by jet action of nitrogen escaping from Hot Rod. Hot Rod pressures insufficient to achieve your present apparent acceleration. Please explain discrepancy between these reports and your own summation of ten hours previous. Suggest close and continual observation of Project Hot Rod. Suspect, repeat strongly suspect, possibility of sabotage. End message."

Nails Andersen stared at the sheet that the com officer had placed in his hands. Then he pressed the intercom to the morgue.

"Dr. Kimball. Please report to the bridge. Dr. P.E.R. Kimball. Please report to the bridge immediately."

Then he turned to Bessie. "Ask the Cow for an orbit computation from the time of the ... er ... meteor last night."

Under Bessie's practiced, computer-minded fingers, the answer wanted came quickly—a displayed string of figures, each to three decimal places, accompanied by a second display on the captain's console showing the old equatorial orbit across a grid projection of the Earth's surface to a point of departure over the mid-Atlantic where it began curving ever farther north, up across the tip of South America, very slightly off course.

The captain glanced at the display of Hot Rod and its taut-cable, and realized with a sickening sense of unreality that no jet action on Hot Rod could have caused it to lead the station in this northerly direction; and that instead it was placidly trailing behind. It was now farther south of the Space Lab than its original position; but their orbit had been displaced to the north.

Perk appeared beside the console, but the captain ignored the astronomer for a moment longer, while he leaned back thinking.

What could be the answer? A leak in the Space Lab itself? That would give acceleration; minor, not to have triggered an alarm—it should have triggered an alarm—but acceleration. Sufficient for the off-orbit shown? He did a brief calculation in his head. It wouldn't take much. Very little, for the time that had passed—Very well, then. He put down a leak in his mind as a possibility. Now, water or air? It could be either, if his reasoning this far were correct. He looked up.

"Have the Cow display barometric readings for each section of the rim and for each compartment in the central hub," he said briefly to Bessie; and to the astronomer, "Dr. Kimball, take that side seat at the computer console and check our progress on this orbital deviation," and he gestured at the display on his screen.

Perk moved to the post with only a nod.

* * * * *

The barometric displays held constant, with only fractional deviations that might have been imposed by the spin of the big wheel, or error in the instruments themselves. Balanced against temperature readings, they worked out to possible fractions of gain or loss so small as to be insignificant, indicating only the inaccuracies of measurement that inevitably occur in comparing the readings of a number of instruments.

The captain had hardly digested the readings displayed by the computer when Perk looked up with a puzzled frown.

"The computer records a continuous acceleration over the past eleven hours and forty-three minutes," he said, "and attributes it," he looked even more puzzled, "to a magneto-ionic effect?" There was a definite question in his voice.

"It's only about six hundred forty pounds," he added. "It must be an external effect caused by the flare."

"Please investigate the effect as thoroughly as possible," the captain told Perk, then dictated a message to the com officer.

"'To U.N. Headquarters, Earth, from Captain Naylor Andersen, commanding Space Lab One. Original assumption that disaster was attributable to meteoric impact on Project Hot Rod appears mistaken. Investigation indicates we are under acceleration from an external magneto-ionic effect which is exerting about—'" he called to Perk. "Did you say six hundred forty pounds?"

The astronomer nodded, and the captain continued, "'Which is exerting about six hundred forty pound pressure against this satellite. We are now working out corrective measures and will inform you immediately they are prepared. If your observatories can give us any advice, please message at once. End.'"

Then the captain depressed his intercom switch to the morgue. "Dr. Chi. Please report to the bridge. Repeat. Dr. Chi Tung. Please report to the bridge at once."

His own intercom hummed, and a voice came on. "Dr. Chi Tung is not in the morgue. He left with Mr. Blackhawk some time ago."

The captain frowned, but pushed the engineering room intercom. "Is Dr. Chi with you, Mr. Blackhawk?" he asked, and when Mike's voice answered, "Yes, sir," he said, "Will you both report to the bridge at once, please?"

When the two arrived, only a little tardily, on the bridge, the captain addressed Ishie.

"You heard of the disaster last night?" The physicist nodded. "We assumed then," the captain told him, "that a meteor had caused the disturbance. That it had gone through the balloon making a hole through which the balloon's nitrogen was escaping, making a jet action and accelerating the ship.

"It seems, however, that we are under acceleration, and that the acceleration is too great to be such jet action, since Hot Rod does not have sufficient pressure.

"The computer reports that the acceleration is derived from an external magneto-ionic effect. Would such an effect be a result of a flare?" he asked.

"I believe it could, captain. I should have to do a bit of math, but...."

"We will assume, then, that the computer is correct," the captain told him. "Could such an effect have a sufficiently great effect on this ship to give it as much as six hundred forty pounds of thrust?"

"Again, I should have to check the math, captain, but I would assume so."

"Mr. Blackhawk," the captain turned to his engineer, "could such a thrust throw Hot Rod off her communications beam and cause last night's disaster?"

"I guess I'd have to check by math, too, captain...." Mike appeared to debate the question. "It would be a very small acceleration at first, of course," he said, "from six hundred forty pounds of thrust. But Hot Rod's cable is slack, and the velocity needn't be great to give it quite a jolt when the slack was taken up. Yes, I feel sure that could happen, captain."



The captain relaxed a little, and a half-smile played near the corner of his mouth as he said to Mike, "I believe, then, we may have found the real saboteur, Mr. Blackhawk." Then to Ishie. "Doctor, I believe that your field is the one in which the most experience lies towards finding a means for counteracting the effect that is now influencing our orbit. I am putting you in charge of the problem. The pull, according to the computer, is as I said, six hundred forty pounds. Do you think you can work out a method for counteraction?"

"I think ... possibly, yes, captain. Let me say, probably yes."

"Then please do so, and report the method to me. I will then submit it to the other scientists aboard that may have some selective knowledge in the field, and to Earth. You may, of course, call on any of the personnel of the ship for assistance, and possibly Mr. Blackhawk may be of assistance to you. He is familiar with the equipment aboard.

"You probably recognize the urgency of the problem so I shall not attempt to underline that urgency further, other than to say that it is of the utmost importance," he ended.

* * * * *

Five minutes later the two conspirators were back in the engineering quarters, grinning like Cheshire cats, and mentally rolling up their sleeves to go to work. They had, to all intents and purposes, carte blanche to work out the construction of the device they would need for an enlarged Confusor with a real thrust, even though they would have to appear to co-operate with a multitude of other interested parties. Mike and Ishie were both becoming adept students of the mythical Dr. Confusion, and neither doubted their combined ability to handle that part of the problem.

"Now," said Ishie, "Confusion say he who can fly on wings of mosquito fly better on wings of eagle. How much thrust do we want, Mike?"

"What are our limits?" asked the practical engineer.

"Limits, schlimits. We got power. Of course," he added, "we are limited by the acceptable stress limits on the wheel, and ... yes ... by the stress limits on our plastic, too."

"The wheel was designed to stand upwards of 1.5 gee maximum spin—but that's only radial strength," Mike began figuring. "Don't think anybody ever calculated the stress of pulling the hub loose, endwise. No reason to, you know, and it wasn't expected to land or anything. And really, nobody expected it to stand in service more than a 1.5 gee spin on the rim. They computed these racks to take all kinds of shock, but the overall structure is rather flimsily built." He paused for thought. "We could maybe put a tenth of a gee on the axis, but I better check some of the stress figures against the structural pattern with the Cow first. We'll have to give some thought to strengthening things later, if we really want to go into the fantastic possibility of landing this monster anywhere."

Consulted, the Sacred Cow computed a potential maximum stress-safety at the hub of something over two-tenths of a gee, and the two finally settled on one-tenth as well within the limits.

"Now the other limit," said Ishie. "This little piece of plastic will only stand a pressure approaching the point at which it begins to distort and run out of the field. This stuff is quoted to have a compression-yield strength of one hundred ten pounds to the square inch. We probably shouldn't exceed ... hm-m-m ... ninety pounds. Let's get the Cow to tell us how big a chunk of surface area that represents."

The answer was discouraging. Mike rapidly converted the figure in centimeters to feet, and came up with nearly an eighty-three foot diameter for a circular surface.

"Looks like we'll have to put it out on the spokes," he muttered in disgust, but Ishie shook his head quickly.

"No need, Mike. Later on we'll need a few thrust points out on the rim for good aiming, but we don't have to have all this surface area in one unit or even in one place. Also, we do not need to consider only the surface of an homogeneous piece of plastic material.

"This plastic can be cast. Very easily. In it, we can insert structures that will absorb the strain from many surfaces within, rather than only on a front surface.

"I expect some of the glass thread with which the hull of the ship was made could be inserted with no trouble. Each thread, then, would take up the strain, and a mass of them distributed through the plastic could deliver a greatly increased amount of thrust from a volume of plastic rather than from a surface area."

* * * * *

Mike started to object. "To get an absolutely parallel magnetic field, the gap between the pole faces can't be very wide."

"Perhaps I wasn't considering pole faces," Ishie answered. "Our investigation has already shown that once initiated the thrust-effect works best in a very low magnetic field.

"Such a low, parallel magnetic field would quite probably be found inside of a simple solenoid coil."

"O.K.," Mike answered, "but you have also found that a very high magnetic field is required to initiate the action. How do you get that inside a solenoid without an iron core?"

"As you say, a strong field must initiate the action. Let us try another experiment, Mike."

Ishie turned the Confusor off, selected a piece of wire from Mike's supplies, and wound a ten-turn coil over the large magnetic coils of the experimental device.

The leads from this he ran to a pulse-generator that could be accurately adjusted to supply pulses of anything from a tenth microsecond to a tenth second.

Selecting the shortest possible duration, he then set the magnetic field adjustment on the experimental device to a point just below that point on which it had turned on previously.

"Now we see." Turning on the device, he glanced at the display panel which still showed zero thrust. Then he triggered a single one-microsecond pulse into the additional ten turns of winding. The readout display showed zero thrust. He triggered a ten microsecond pulse. Nothing happened. One hundred microseconds. Nothing. One thousand microseconds—the display changed, dropping so quickly into position that the pulse thrust itself was not recorded—but the figure turned up seven hundred thirty pounds thrust on the display panel.

"So," said Ishie, "we can initiate thrust with a one thousand microsecond pulse. Can you design a power supply that would achieve that field for that time in a solenoid having ... say ... one per cent as high a field strength as the one we are using here?"

"O.K.," said Mike. "I get you. Sounds to me like this thing is going to look like a barrel when we get through with it.

"I wish," he added, "that we could get one point one gee. And land this thing on Earth. And have a big parade, with Space Lab One hovering just overhead to the cheers and the blaring bands and the—"

"Confusion say, he who would poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the people themselves, that is, that aren't directly concerned with man's welfare? We haven't done this in the proper manner of team research and billions spent in experiments and planned predicted achievements made with the proper Madison Avenue bow to the financier that made it possible. You know what they do to wild-haired individualists down there, don't you?"

Mike shrugged. "Oh, well," he said, "you're right of course. But it was a beautiful dream. How do you suppose we can build these and still keep all the scientists aboard and on Earth happy that they're just innocent magneto-ionic effect cancelers? Boy, that was a beauty, Ishie!"

"Best we have two sets of drawings. The ones for us can be sketchy, and need not have too much exactitude of design. We know what we're doing—at least, I hope we do.

"But let us make a second set of drawings that is somewhat different, though of a simpler shape and design, on which other scientists aboard can speculate, and which can be sent to Earth to confuse the confusion."

* * * * *

The two went to work with a will, and as the two sets of drawings emerged, they were indeed different. The set from which they would actually work was only mildly described as sketchy. The papers looked like the notations a man makes for himself to get the figures he will set into a formalized pattern as it takes shape, before throwing his penciled figurings into the wastebasket.

The second set was exact; created with drawing instruments on Mike's drafting board, and each of the component circuits would have created an effect that would have interlocked in the whole, but it would take the most erudite of persons to figure each into its effect, and its effect into the whole, and the effect of the whole was somewhat that somebody might someday figure out—but would possibly cancel a magneto-ionic effect if such existed. The drawings looked extremely impressive.

As the second set of drawings neared completion, Ishie glanced at the clock, then turned to the Cow's vocoder.

"How soon will Space Lab One reach the northernmost point of her present orbit and begin a swing to the south?" he asked.

Mike looked puzzled, but the Cow answered, "In ten minutes, thirty-seven seconds. At precisely 05:27:53 ship time."

"I think," said Ishie, "we'd best put a switch on our magnetic field so that we can reverse the field and the thrust."

"Why?" asked Mike.

"Because," Ishie explained, "when we reach the top of our course northward, then the thrust of the Confusor and Earth's gravity come into conflict, moving our entire orbit off-center and bringing us closer to the pole. In not too many orbits, that eccentricity in our orbit might pull us into the Van Allen belt. We can't afford that. Now, if we reverse the thrust at the right time, our orbit will be enlarged and we stay out of troubled spaces."

Mike was still puzzled. "I don't see how that works," he said. "Why wouldn't we just go off in a spiral on our present thrust?"

"The acceleration of Earth is a much greater influence," Ishie tried to make it clear, "than our little mosquito here. As long as they work together, things go well. But when Earth dictates that we will now swing south, be it ever so few degrees south, our mosquito is overpowered and can only drag us clear to Earth-center on a closing spiral, which would eventually lead us to crash somewhere in the southern hemisphere, a good many orbits from now.

"I hope," he said, "reversing the magnetic field will indeed reverse our little mosquito's thrust." He moved toward the Confusor.

"Hold it," said Mike. "The displacement in orbit won't be very much, at least on the first few go-arounds, will it? and if we switch it now, somebody'll start getting suspicious of this magneto-ionic effect. The effect that's doing all this. A sudden reversal might not be in its character, if it had a character. And anyhow, we don't want to give another jerk on Hot Rod. We might jerk something loose this time. We've already wiped out Thule Base—and there's no use adding scalps to an already full belt."

"O.K.," said Ishie. "Then now, I think it is time that we presented our formal drawings to the captain; and I think that when we present them we will suggest that we start work immediately on construction, even while he is checking out our drawings through his experts, so that the project will not be delayed."

* * * * *

On the bridge, the captain received the drawings with relief.

"Thank you, gentlemen. If these prove out, you may have saved the satellite by the rapidity of your work. Dr. Kimball calculated that our present acceleration will take us dangerously close to the Van Allen belt in about three orbits, and I need not tell you what that would mean."

Ishie spoke up immediately. "In that case, captain, perhaps Mr. Blackhawk and I had better start construction on this device immediately, without waiting for you to complete the check-out. That may save us invaluable time."

"Of course," said the captain. "What assistance will you need?"

"Of the greatest priority," replied Ishie gravely, "is access to the machine shop. The solar flare should be about wearing itself out."

"Oh ... of course. It may be." The captain's face was slightly red as he realized he had not thought to check this point. "Bessie, ask the computer...."

"Yes, sir," she answered quickly, and returned shortly. "The computer says the radiation count is down to ten M.R. above normal."

"It's a fairly low reading, even if it is above the Cow's normal-safe mark. That reading could go on for hours, which we may not have," commented Ishie. "Perhaps we could disregard so narrow a differential...."

"In your opinion, doctor," the captain asked, "would it be safe to return the personnel to the rim? Of course, I would have to return the entire ship to normal conditions in order to give the machine shop or any other part of the rim its normal six-foot shielding," he added, "so please consider your answer carefully."

"I think you would be quite safe to do so, captain. Considering the fact that otherwise we may go into the Van Allen belt, I think it should be done without question."

To himself, Mike chortled gleefully. This grave, pedantic physicist was about as unlike the co-conspirator with whom he had worked for the past nearly ten hours as was possible. "The guy's a genius at a lot of things," he thought to himself. "Puts on the social mock-up expected of him like you'd put on a suit of clothes—and takes it off just as completely," he added as an afterthought.

* * * * *

The return to the rim was slower than had been the evacuation—but it was complete within twenty minutes of the decision to return the satellite to normal.

In the machine shop, Paul and Tombu, with Ishie and Mike, were gathering the materials they'd need for the odd construction—Paul singing to himself as he worked.

"I got in the shuttle, thought it went to the Base; I'd learned my trade; there I'd take my place Safely on Earth; but I found me in space— I'd went where I wasn't going!"

"What's that song?" asked Ishie of the spaceman.

"Oh, that's just 'The Spaceman's Lament.' You make it up as you go along." His voice grew louder, taking the minor, wailing key at a volume the others could hear.

"I got on the wheel, thought I'd stay for the ride— I'd found a funny suit in which to hide— But I went through a closet—and I was outside! I'd went where I wasn't going!"

Tombu and Mike joined happily in the chorus, bawling it out at the top of their lungs as they began the work that would make the big Confusor.

"Oh ... there's a sky-trail leading from here to there And another yonder showing— But when I get to the end of the run It'll be where I wasn't going!"

Meanwhile, facsimile copies of the official drawings had been made for the other interested scientists aboard, and also sent by transfax to U.N. headquarters for distribution among Earth's top-level scientists.

They were innocent enough in concept, and sufficiently complex in design to require a great deal of study by these conservative individuals who would never risk a hasty guess as to the consequences of even so simple an action as sneezing at the wrong time.

* * * * *

Major Steve Elbertson awoke with a start, to see a medic's eyes inches from his own. For a moment, fearing himself under physical attack, he struck out convulsively, and then as the face withdrew he sat up slowly.

He was slightly nauseous; very dizzy; and his instincts told him that he needed a gallon of coffee as soon as he could get it. Then the medic's voice penetrated.

"Please, sir, you must rest. No excitement."

Almost, he was persuaded. It would be so easy to relax; to give someone else the responsibility. But the concept of responsibility brought him struggling up again.

Hot Rod was a dangerous weapon. He could not act irresponsibly.

"How long was I out?" he muttered.

The medic glanced at the clock. "Just over nineteen hours, sir."

"Wha-at? You dared to keep me off duty that long? I must report for duty at once."

"Please, sir. No excitement. You must rest. Just a moment and I'll call Dr. Green." With that the medic turned and fled.

As Dr. Green approached, Steve Elbertson was already on his feet, swaying dizzily, white as a sheet, but perhaps the latter was more from anger than from anything else.

"Major Elbertson. You received a severe dose of radiation. You are under my personal supervision and will return to bed at once."

"Is the flare over?" Elbertson asked the question, although already vaguely aware that the ship was again spinning, that he was standing on the floor fairly firmly, and that, therefore, the emergency must be over.

"Yes."

"In that case, sir, my duty is to my post on Hot Rod."

"Hot Rod's out of commission and so are you. I cannot be responsible for the consequences if you do not follow my orders."

"Explain that, please. About Hot Rod, I mean."

"Why, it was struck by a meteor shortly after the flare last night. I think I heard someone say that it burned out Thule Base before they managed to turn it off."

Without waiting for more, Elbertson brushed past the doctor and headed for the bridge.

The captain was startled by the mad-looking, unshaven scarecrow of an officer that approached him, demanding in a near-scream, "What happened? What have you done? What did you DO to Project Hot Rod? No one should have tampered with it without my direct order! Captain, if that mechanism has been ruined, I'll have them nail your hide to the door!"

"Major!" The captain stood. "This may be a civilian post, but you are still an officer and I am your superior. Return to your quarters and clean up. Then report to me properly!"

For a moment there was seething rebellion on Elbertson's already wild features. Then, automatonlike, he turned and walked stiffly away without saluting.

But the stiffness left him as he passed through the door. Momentarily he sagged against a wall for support, far weaker than he thought possible for a man of his youth and what he thought of as his condition. Making his way almost blindly to Security's quarters in rim-section B-5, he staggered through the door and on towards the latrine, shouting at Chauvenseer to "Get out of that sack and give me a detailed report on events since the flare. Oh, and send somebody for coffee—lots of coffee."

* * * * *

On the bridge the captain flipped the intercom to Dr. Green's station. "Is Major Elbertson under the influence of any unusual drugs, doctor?" he asked when he'd reached the medical staff chief. "Anything that might make his behavior erratic?"

"Only sedatives, captain. And, oh yes, those new sulph-hydral anti-radiation shots. We're not too familiar with what they do, though the reports indicate the worst effect is a mild anoxemia, which generally results in something of a headache. Of course, that's if the quantity of the drug was precisely calibrated. They can be fatal," he added as an afterthought.

"Would anoxemia cause a change in character, doctor?"

"It might. It might make one behave either stupidly or irrationally—temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of the effect."

"Did Major Elbertson seem normal to you when you discharged him from hospital?"

"I did not discharge him, captain. I ordered him to remain under my care. But he seemed greatly upset, and short of force I could not have kept him from leaving."

"I see." The captain paused, then asked: "Doctor, please consider carefully. Would you consider Major Elbertson's condition serious enough to warrant confining him to bed by force?"

"Probably not. He should come out of it in a few hours. Exercise may possibly be good for him, though I doubt if he's capable of much of it." The doctor chuckled as though at a private joke with himself, then added, "He's really quite weak physically, you know, even without the after effects of radiation and drugs."

"Thank you, doctor."

* * * * *

Back in his quarters, Elbertson was refusing to admit to himself the fact of his own weakness. He had been quite ill in the shower, had managed to slash himself rather badly with the razor while shaving, but was now smartly attired in a clean pair of the regulation coveralls, with the insignia of his rank properly in place—and so weak he could hardly move.

The coffee hadn't helped much.

The briefing had helped even less. The major knew himself guilty of negligence while on duty. Inadvertently, but as though by his very hand, certainly through the agency of some saboteur he had failed to spot, his weapon had been turned on his own troops at Thule, key post in the plan.

It was possible that the entire plan had been sabotaged, though that seemed quite unlikely. Its ramifications were too great. So long as Hot Rod still existed, was still within their reach, the plan was operational.

The nonsense about a magneto-ionic effect he discarded without hesitation. Obviously it was sabotage, possibly by someone with a plan of his own, more probably by someone in the pay of one of the big power companies that would like to see the operation at least postponed. Obviously—he gave up.

Nothing would be obvious until he knew in exact detail what had occurred, what the plans of the enemy would be, where next they would strike—and who was the enemy.

But that last, at least, was almost obvious. Who else, but the man who had carried the political battle, against all odds, that Hot Rod be created? Who else but Captain Naylor Andersen could possibly have delivered this sneaking, underhanded attack against himself and his comrades?

Who else, he thought, but a man so callous as to order him, sick as he was, as though he were a mere cadet, to leave the bridge.

Major Elbertson's mind was made up as to the identity of the enemy.

But he would have to proceed with care, or he would key the plan before the time was ripe. There must be no great shake-up in personnel, or undue attention from Earth to the potentials of Project Hot Rod.

Perhaps the saboteur's cover-story of a magneto-ionic effect would serve his ends as well—at least until his comrades on Earth signaled that the time was ripe.

Yet now that Hot Rod had proved its power, the time was ripe. It was that proof on which the plan had waited. And perhaps this very sabotage would prove to be the "incident" on which the plan hinged....

Even as he fought to clear his normally organized mind of the weariness of his body that now sapped at its strength, the call came.

Chauvenseer appeared at his side, saluting smartly. "Com Officer Clark, sir, reports a message from Earth. The message, sir. 'Begin Operation Ripe Peach.'"

Major Elbertson pulled himself to a military stance, returning his aide's salute with complete precision.

Briefly he considered gathering all his men, all the Security personnel, and storming the bridge.

No, obviously the enemy was organized—an unforeseen circumstance. Obviously the captain was not alone. Obviously his men included at least some of these slipstick boys—and he would command the loyalty of them all, since he was somewhat of their ilk himself.

No, an officer must seek the most advantageous position from which to deliver his ultimatum.

He must use Hot Rod itself to control them. If Hot Rod itself were actually sabotaged, then the plan must wait until he could have it repaired. He doubted it was hurt.

The flare had thrown off all original sequences—but perhaps that was to his advantage.

To Chauvenseer he snapped: "This is the detail of our immediate operation. Get four of our best men besides yourself. Have each of them come separately and unobtrusively to the south polar lock, where I will meet them. I will bring Smith with me.

"Have each of the others take his assigned post for Operation Ripe Peach—but order them to take no action other than to prevent anyone on board from doing anything unusual that might be an enemy operation—until I alert them that Operation Ripe Peach is operational.

"Their orders will, of course, come on our personal radios, Security Band 2Z21.

"Execute!" he ended, saluting smartly.

* * * * *

As the Security squad moved, with individual secrecy, towards their various posts, Captain Andersen was considering that Elbertson would probably snap out of it as soon as he had had coffee and a shave. The man had probably been severely affected by the drugs he had been given. He would make no further reference to the incident of erratic behavior, unless it continued.



Bessie, having at the moment nothing else to do, was busily plying the Sacred Cow not only for her own horoscope for the day, but also those of the several persons of whom she was most fond, while carefully keeping a shielding bunch of paper work in a place to make it appear that she was officially busy. The captain's horoscope, she recognized, didn't look much worse than the rest of them, but was definitely the worst. One of those mathematical jumbles that somehow didn't interpret clearly. None of them looked very good today.

Out on the rim, things were getting back to normal. The labs were functioning again, most of them according to their assigned, routine procedures; but in some, heads were drawn together over the absorbing diagrams supplied by Mike and Ishie.

Mike and Ishie themselves had already put in twelve hours almost without a break. Working under stress, neither of them had remembered to eat.

There was a cough at the entrance to the machine shop, and Dr. Millie Williams' soft voice said "May I come in?"

The two looked up as the slender figure of the dark-skinned biologist entered the lab, balancing "trays" with plastic bottles atop.

"If I know you, Dr. Ishie; and you, too, Mike—you haven't eaten," she said with a smile. "Now, have you?"

"Millie," said Mike, "you've just reminded me that I'm as hollow as a deserted bee-stump after the bears get through with it!"

"Little Millie," said Ishie, looking up at the figure nearly as tiny as his own, "you must be telepathic as well as beautiful. Confusion say 'Gee, I'm hungry!'"

"I'm told that the fate of the satellite depends on you two," Millie smiled. "I thought I'd just give our fate a little extra chance. Now drop what you're doing and light into this.

"After that, if you've got a job for a mere biologist, I've got my lab readied up where it can last till I get back and—I'm not bad with a soldering iron. Meantime, why don't you let Paul and Tombu go eat while you eat?"

"Good idea," said Mike. "You two. You heard the lady. We gotta give our fate the benefit of victuals. Scat."

* * * * *

As soon as the physicist and the engineer were settled to the plastic containers of food and coffee she had brought, wolfing them down hungrily, Millie opened up.

"While we're alone, I'm going to speak my piece," she said. "You two will do me the honor of not taking offense if I say that you have the most brains and the least consciences aboard—and I happen to share the latter characteristic."

The two looked up guiltily and waited.

"Now don't stop eating, for I'm not through talking," she said. "That magneto-ionic effect canceler you dreamed up would probably cancel the six hundred forty pound magneto-ionic effect pull you dreamed up—if such a thing existed.

"What I want to know ... don't stop eating until you've decided whether you're going to let me in on your game or not ... is what really does exist? I might be of some help, you know."

"But—" Mike and Ishie simultaneously choked over their food, looked at each other, and then Mike blurted out, "but how could she know?"

"Don't worry," said Millie. "I'm probably the only one. It takes a person with little conscience and much imagination—takes a thief to catch a thief, I mean—yes, I think I mean that quite literally. Besides, I can help with some of that glassware that disappeared out of my supplies several days ago. Oh yes, I knew it was gone and where it went—but I figured any purpose you had was a good one, Ishie.

"But for how I personally canceled the idea of your magneto-ionic effect from the flare—it just happens that last night I was curious while everybody was asleep. When Bessie first came on duty this morning, I offered to relieve her while she had a cup of coffee, and I got a half-hour all by myself with the Cow. The captain wasn't up yet. Her console's so simple anyone with a basic knowledge of computers and cybernetics could figure her out.

"Practically the first question I asked—something about our orbit—the Cow told me that the information was top secret, and to get it I must go to the proper channel and identify myself as Mike. I started to intercom you, Mike, to tell you that your machinations were showing, but Bessie came back about then. I hung around to see what would happen, and pretty soon Bessie asked the Cow about the same question—but instead of getting the same answer, the Cow told her that an external magneto-ionic field was pulling us out of line.

"So I went up to your engineering place. I rather thought you'd like to know what the Cow had told me—but Dr. Ishie was there, and so instead I went about my own business until I could figure things out.

"Now I couldn't figure things out. But I could figure there's a monkey wrench somewhere—and since the two of you have been sticking together like Siamese twins, I know it will be perfectly all right to ask you in front of Ishie.

"Now," she finished, "do I get my girlish curiosity satisfied? You don't have to tell me. I'll just keep on being puzzled quietly and without indicating the slightest magneto-ionic dubiousness, if you'd rather. But I might be helpful; and I would like to know."

"Confusion say," Ishie declared through the side of his mouth, "that he who inadvertently puts big foot in mouth is apt to get teeth kicked loose. We are very lucky, Mike, that it was Millie who asked the question of the Cow at that time. Besides, we've got to tell somebody sooner or later. We can't just run off by ourselves.

"Yes, Millie, I think you have a job," he said. "Your help here will be appreciated, of course. But what we really need is a way of bridging the gap between ourselves and the rest of the personnel before it gets too wide. How's your P.R. these days?"

"That's something I learned in a hard school, public relations," she answered nonchalantly. "De-segregation was just beginning when I was a girl back in Georgia. But maybe I'd better know what the gap is."

* * * * *

The two began to talk, interrupting each other, incoherently outlining the Confusor and the various forces it exerted, and the—what Mike kept calling the inertial fish hook.

Finally Mike took over. "To put it simply," he said, "our pet didn't do at all what we expected—it hooked in on inertia and it took us off. A confusing little Confusor—but Millie—it's a space drive! A real, honest-to-gosh space drive!"

Millie gulped. It was far, far more than she had expected. Perhaps this was another form of disguise like the magneto-ionic....

"Are you sure?" Then she answered her own doubts. "Of course you're telling the truth now. That's not something you two would play games about." Then in awe—"You've really got it!"

"But why, then," she said, uncomprehending, "are you hiding it?" But before they could answer, she answered her own question again. "You'd have to. Of course. Otherwise it'll be strangled in red tape. Otherwise nobody'll let you work on it any more, except as head of a research team stuck off somewhere. Otherwise, Budget Control would take it over and make a fifteen-year project out of it—and the two of you will probably have it in practical operation...."

She looked at the molds and wiring taking form all across the machine shop.

"Oh, no! You'll have it in operation—soon!"

"Yes, soon—and we hope soon enough." Ishie sighed, then grinned impudently. "There is," he said, "the little matter of the fact that—in all innocence but nevertheless quite actually—we wiped out Thule Base.

"If we don't get the big Confusor in operation very soon, it may be that we shall spend a good deal of time in Earth's courts proving our innocence while someone else botches most thoroughly the job of creating a Confusor that could take us to the stars. And that," he added mournfully, "neither of us would enjoy. We might not even be able to prove our innocence, for there would be many very anxious to prove us sufficiently guilty to keep us out of the way for many years.

"So you see," he said, "you have a very real P.R. problem. Our assistants here could work better if they knew what they were doing. The people aboard the wheel would be most excited by a space drive, and would give us every aid.

"But what the law says, it says—and the captain would have no choice but to put us in irons if he heard, though I think our captain is such that he would not want to do it.

"We must tell everyone what we have, for where the wheel takes us, they will go. But we can't tell them, for if we tell anyone, it will get back to Earth—and we murdered Thule, according to the law of Earth.

"It is a very neat problem," he said.

* * * * *

Major Steve Elbertson arrived first at Project Hot Rod, and trailing behind him on their scuttlebugs, the other six men.

As he slipped through the lock and out of his spacesuit, he reached down the neck of his coveralls and carefully extracted the Security key in its flat, plastiskin packet, from between his shoulder blades. At least the villainous captain had not gotten his hands on this, he thought, and whatever damage had been done to Hot Rod probably could be quickly repaired.

He had heard of the hunt for the key, and been silently amused, though he had volunteered no information to his briefing officer, Chauvenseer.